


Feast Day

by thelma_throwaway



Series: The How-It-Was [6]
Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Smut, Implied Sexual Content, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:09:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22214434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelma_throwaway/pseuds/thelma_throwaway
Summary: No matter where you fly, no matter where you land, it’s always a feast day somewhere.
Relationships: Jayne Cobb/River Tam, Kaylee Frye/Simon Tam
Series: The How-It-Was [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592782
Comments: 1
Kudos: 39





	Feast Day

**Author's Note:**

> don't know, everyone 18+ and enthusiastically consenting

No matter where you fly, no matter where you land, it’s always a feast day somewhere. 

Jayne is drinking after the local custom, mug upon mug of dirty beer that looks like dishwater. He yukks it up with the menfolk, though they mostly like to discuss cricket feed and the best way to pen a flock of spring peepers. He tells them a few tall tales of his more heroic moments, they laugh and pour him another lumpy, grey ale. 

River wanders to his side and sits without talking. Her hair hangs loose over a red cotton dress, little bows along the bodice. She drums her fingers where his arm rests on the table.

“Pardon us, miss,” one of the locals says politely when they finally notice her. He’s just finished the joke about an six-toed governor’s wife and a frog farmer. Despite the bawdy talk, they’re all clean as soap here.

“Ha!” Jayne smirks into his beer. “She’s said worse. You lost yer pals, girly?”

“I think they lost me,” she sighs. She’s getting tired of pretending to be chaperoned when her chaperones keep sneaking off to rut in the bushes. “Almost a wonder there’s no one to call me  _ gugu  _ yet.”

The cricket farmers have gone quiet, still sipping and murmuring about this crop and that, but heedful of the girl. Jayne thinks how young she must look, how pure and silly. It’s the little bows, he decides. And that they’ve never seen her cut a man lengthwise. Under the table her fingers find one of his belt loops, worrying the worn strap for just a moment before sliding away. A half-drunk thought staggers across his mind— he’d like to nibble those dumb little bows right off of her. 

“Take a sip and go find some fun.” He couldn’t have shooed her any clearer if he prodded her off her stool with a broom. She cuts her eyes at him but gulps a mouthful, wincing against the taste. 

“Some of the young folk are gathering at the pavilion,” offers one of the cricket keepers. “You’d be in good company there.” 

“Well now don’t that sound shiny?” Jayne nudges her knee with his. “Talk to the young’uns for a change ‘stead of us crusty old cowhands.”

“Oh yes,” pipes another yokel. “You’ve probably missed the horseshoe toss but you’ll be right on time for the quilting bee. And there’ll be some music and dancing later tonight.”

“All the best new hymns. My Clarissa can show you the steps.” The beer pourer shows her a painted locket of his daughter. She looks like a pile of straw to Jayne.

“That’s mighty kind.” River produces a charm school smile as she rises from the table. “Good evening, gentlemen.” He can hardly keep from laughing at the thought of the tetchy little assassin stitching granny squares and line dancing to spirituals. 

“You got quite a report with your young kin there,” says the man next to him when she disappears back into the crowd. “You looking to wife her to anyone? Mannerly women are in short supply n’ I got five sons.”

“Naw, we’re not kin. You’d have to ask her brother.” He imagines Simon sputtering and red, some frog farmer trying to haggle a brideprice for his sweet, violent  _ meimei _ . “He’s attached.” 

Some time later Jayne takes his leave of them when his stomach starts to turn against the cloudy ale. He pays a penny for a skewer of fried crickets and wanders through the wholesome display. His gut settles and his mind clears. 

She finds him sitting on a vegetable cart with a good view of the makeshift boxing ring they’ve set up. He’s sipping a fresh mug of ale and spitting out the chunks into the dirt.

“That’s disgusting.” She perches next to him. 

“Get’s better the more you drink it.” He reaches into his coat and pulls out a flask of whiskey. “No reason to ruin your gut on it, darlin’ .”

She takes the flask but doesn’t open it, turning the cool metal over in her hands. “Are you always drinking?” 

“Yes.” He sneers at her. “Got some judgement on it?” 

She shrugs and kicks her heels. In the ring, two slim-chested lightweights are going at it like they have a score to settle. 

After a long while in silence he heaves a sigh and pours out the gelatinous dregs of his beer. “You go dancin’?”

“Oh, yes. Met a wonderful young man named Horace.” She tilts her head and grins. “He’s going to take me to his mother’s frog ranch and I will give him many fat little frog-chasing babies.”

“Guess it’s hard,” he ponders, hawking a chunk of beer into the dirt. “Smart gal like you to meet a match in towns like this.”

“The dumber the better actually. Plain thoughts, plain wants.” She nibbles on her lower lip. “I’ve never had much luck.”

“Naww, you seem to pull pretty good. Better’n that  _ yuben de _ brother of yours.” They both laugh at Simon’s expense.

Together on the vegetable cart they watch the fairgrounds swell with revelers and recede as the moon raises up. She sips a little whiskey, doesn’t fix her skirt when it rides over her knees. Kaylee and Simon stumble by as the townsfolk start to close up their booths and snuff out the torches dotted around the field. They’re lips are swollen and Simon’s hair sticks out in all directions. He has one arm hooked through Kaylee’s, the other holding his jacket firmly in place in front of his waist. 

“You two have fun?” Kaylee giggles. 

“Oh, yeah.” Jayne surveys the pair with a wolfy grin. “I ate some crickets, Riv met a promising bachelor.”

“Really,  _ meimei _ ?” Simon is dazed, his head bobbles on his neck. “That’s nice.”

“Yes, Horace. He raises frogs. His family is coming tomorrow to parlay.”

“Lovely…” The pair stumble away mumbling about suitors and families and tea and cakes-- cake, could they still get cake right now?

“Guess Little Kaylee really roughed him up. Looks like she laid him right into a haystack.”

She gags.

“Well, you saw ‘em.” The boxing ring is broken down and the lightweights go home, gathered up by a woman who looks to be their mother. “You cold?”

“No.” She uncrosses her arms from her stomach, presses her palms into her thighs.

“Really?” He traces the outline of her nipple pressing through the red cotton. The fairground is nearly empty. Her face is lit by the moonlight reflecting off the whiskey flask in her lap. The last torch goes out and they’re alone except for the deafening thrum from the frog plantations and the moans of lovers nested around the grounds. 

“Jayne..”

“Yes?” He traces the other one now, runs his thumb over the little red bows on her dress.

“Are you drunk?”

He freezes and his heart pounds once. He thinks hard before answering honestly. “No. You?”

“No. Are you going to offer me your jacket?”

His hand drifts to the nape of her neck, the other slides from her knee to her waist as he guides her to lay back. “No.” 


End file.
